Nina Bergan Holmelin
Flexible adaptation in Himalayan small-scale farming
Subsistence production, gender relations, and adaptive capacity under climatic and market uncertainty in Nepal
2020
Thesis for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) University of Bergen, Norway
at the University of Bergen
Avhandling for graden philosophiae doctor (ph.d ) ved Universitetet i Bergen
.
2017
Dato for disputas: 1111
Nina Bergan Holmelin
Flexible adaptation in
Himalayan small-scale farming
Subsistence production, gender relations, and adaptive capacity under climatic and market uncertainty in Nepal
Thesis for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD)
Date of defense: 20.11.2020
The material in this publication is covered by the provisions of the Copyright Act.
Print: Skipnes Kommunikasjon / University of Bergen Name: Nina Bergan Holmelin
Title: Flexible adaptation in Himalayan small-scale farming Year: 2020
Abstract
Climate change imposes new challenges for small-scale farmers in Nepal by adding climatic uncertainty to the existing natural climate variability, and by disturbing food production systems and food markets. In conjunction with a fluctuating international labour market with low job security for unskilled migrant workers, it is likely that local, subsistence-based food production will continue to be important for household food security in rural Nepal.
This dissertation studies the adaptive capacity of a small-scale farming community through the theoretical lens of flexibility. Building on Gregory Bateson’s notion of flexibility as uncommitted potentialities for change, I argue that buffers of unused capacity in factors of production, opportunities for change in crop composition, and the ability to rapidly adjust production give room to manoeuvre. Flexibility in farming gives capacity to adapt to increasingly unpredictable fluctuations in local climatic conditions and international markets for food and labour.
By conducting ethnographic fieldwork and applying qualitative and quantitative fieldwork methods to a case study from the Nepali Middle Hills, I analyse flexibility at the scales of a community farming system and household farm systems. Here, as elsewhere in Nepal, foreign labour migration by young men is prevalent. However, migrants have also started to return and invest their labour in new cash crops, which add to the households’ cultivation of traditional staple crops for food. Since land holdings are small and few are fully self-sufficient from own production, additional food is bought by means of some income from cash cropping, remittances, and off- farm work. The expansion of the local range of available cultivars enables farmers to alternate between various food and cash crops, and ensures that if one crop fails, there are others to eat. Diversification, not specialization, preserves the flexibility to rapidly adjust resource utilization, crop compositions, and productive practices. A flexible combination of subsistence production and high-value crops makes an important
contribution to adaptive capacity under uncertain and variable climatic and market conditions.
Migration has contributed to raise household incomes through remittances but has also increased the agricultural work burden for women. Although women already take part in decision-making on the farm, their participation in public, financial and market spheres are more restricted. Local gender roles are currently changing as women have started to enter new social spheres. I find that there are two competing sets of cultural gender norms in Nepal: Modern development ideas of women’s empowerment and gender equality challenge traditional gender norms, which
constrain women’s decision-making power to the household and the farm. In the local community, the ability to negotiate a new role space for women is socially
differentiated. Individuals who stand strong in hierarchies of caste and ethnicity, wealth, age, and marital status are in a better position to change local gender roles than less fortunate individuals who rather feel caught in a cultural conflict of competing gender norms. In sum, cultural change in local gender roles opens for greater participation by women in public life, local markets, and microcredit cooperatives.
Although income from cash cropping is an attractive option for returned migrants, the households’ production strategy is not primarily driven by a desire to maximise profit. Cash cropping is considered a high-risk option and an alternative to migration, but not an alternative to subsistence food production. I find that people combine two production logics: They apply the profit-motivated market logic on a small share of their land, while keeping most of their land for food production for own consumption.
According to the subsistence logic, the main purpose of farming is to ensure a stable access to food for the household by means of own production, to contribute to and benefit from reciprocity-based systems for sharing food and labour in the community, and to maintain social ties and traditions.
The current agricultural development strategy of the Nepali Government regards subsistence production as an impediment to economic growth, and advocates a
transformation of Nepali agriculture into large-scale, mechanized, specialized, and commercial production units. Implementing this strategy may improve the
agricultural sector’s economic performance and reduce Nepal’s dependency on food imports, but it would not ensure stable access to food for rural farming households.
The farmers’ strategy to balance subsistence and market production, and maintain social security systems in the community, enhances their food security and adaptive capacity.
Theoretically, I distinguish between two levels of abstraction and argue that in a dynamic and uncertain environment, flexible adaptation at one level of abstraction helps ensure the general sustainability of the system at a higher level. Ensuring the sustainability of small-scale farm systems means to maintain their ability to provide people with food and a livelihood, often in combination with off-farm activities.
Unless national policies that severely restrict the farmers’ flexibility are implemented, or the impacts of climate change turn out to exceed the limits of adaptive capacity in this community, small-scale subsistence farming is likely to persist in Maina Pokhari.
Acknowledgements
As I finalize the work with this dissertation, I wish to thank my supervisor, Tor Halfdan Aase, who inspired me to choose the academic discipline of Geography and who introduced me to Himalaya studies, sixteen years ago. Later, he sent me to the high mountains of Nepal for the very first time as a young Master student and supervised me through the fieldwork and writing process at both Master level and now through a PhD. I am truly grateful for all our theoretical and empirical discussions, his kind help and guidance, his patience, and for believing in me from the very beginning. I am proud to be one of his many academic followers.
Great thanks to my research assistant, Niki Shrestha, who became a good friend during our time in Maina Pokhari. We both felt very welcome there, and I thank the people of Chhetrapa, Kavre, Yarza and especially, my hosts at Muna Hotel. Thanks also to Prem Sagar Chapagain for his help and company whenever I come to Nepal.
Many thanks to my colleagues and friends at CICERO. To Robbie for all his support and friendship, and for reading through all my manuscripts before submission. To Bob for steering HICAP through some quite rough waters and for always being so nice to work with. And to Tom for his experienced views and comments on the framing introduction in the final stages of writing. Great thanks to my fantastic boss Frode, to Tone, Asbjørn, Astrid, Steffen, and Erlend, to Kristin, Maria, and Gunnell for our Friday walks during this spring’s lockdown, and to everyone in my research group, Local Solutions.
I wish to thank my parents and my sister Hanna for always being there and looking out for me, and Helle for our close, everlasting friendship. And lastly, my greatest thanks go to my dear Carl-Fritjof, who brightens my days and brings me back to reality whenever I get lost in thoughts and work.
List of publications
1. Holmelin, Nina and Aase, Tor H. (2013)1. Flexibility of Scope, Type and Temporality in Mustang, Nepal. Opportunities for Adaptation in a Farming System Facing Climatic and Market Uncertainty. Sustainability 2013, 5(4), 1387-1405. https://doi.org/10.3390/su5041387
2. Holmelin, Nina B. (2017)2. Minor crops and major opportunities in Dolakha, Nepal. In T. H. Aase (ed.), Climate Change and the Future of Himalayan Farming. Oxford University Press 2017. ISBN 9780199475476.
http://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199475476.003.0006.
3. Holmelin, Nina B. (2019)3. Competing gender norms and social practice in Himalayan farm management. World Development 122 (October 2019), 85-95.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.05.018
4. Holmelin, Nina B. (submitted 2019). National specialization policy versus farmers’ priorities: Balancing subsistence farming and cash cropping in Nepal.
(Under review, in Journal of Rural Studies)
Co-author contribution
Paper 1: Nina Bergan Holmelin contributed 80%, Tor Halfdan Aase contributed 20%.
A signed co-author declaration is attached in Appendices.
1 This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License
2 This material was originally published in the book Climate Change and the Future of Himalayan Farming (2017), edited by Tor H. Aase, and has been reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press. For permission to reuse this material, please visit
http://global.oup.com/academic/rights.
3 This article is available under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND license and permits non- commercial use of the work as published, without adaptation or alteration provided the work is fully attributed.
A view over parts of the study area: Chhetrapa municipality under the twin peak mountain, Gauri Shankar (7134 m).
Contents
PART 1: Framing introduction
Abstract ... III Acknowledgements ... VI List of publications ... VII Contents... IX List of tables, figures, and map ... XI Acronyms and abbreviations ... XII
1. Introduction ... 1
1.1 Objective and research questions ... 3
1.2 Structure of the dissertation ... 4
1.3 Summaries of the papers ... 5
1.4 Scientific environment and funding ... 10
2. Research design and methodology ... 13
2.1 Selection of study area ... 13
2.2 Mixed methods research design ... 15
2.2.1 Ethnography ... 17
2.2.2 Participant observation: Positionality and status ... 19
2.2.3 Observation ... 27
2.2.4 Semi-structured interviews and group interviews ... 28
2.2.5 Intensive household cases studies ... 29
2.2.6 Household survey: Sampling and representativity ... 30
2.3 Ethical considerations ... 36
2.4 Reliability and validity ... 37
3. Theoretical basis for the analyses ... 39
3.1 Theory of science foundations ... 39
3.1.1 Critical realist ontology ... 39
3.1.2 Epistemology ... 40
3.2 Abstraction ... 44
3.3 Definition of core analytical concepts ... 50
3.3.1 Scale... 50
3.3.2 The scales of farm systems and farming systems ... 53
3.3.3 Functional region ... 55
3.3.4 Household ... 56
3.3.5 Small-scale farmer ... 58
3.4 Literature reviews and contributions to the research field ... 59
3.4.1 Observed climate changes in Himalaya ... 59
3.4.2 Impacts of projected warming on snow, ice and meltwater ... 60
3.4.3 Changing precipitation patterns ... 62
3.4.4 Climate change adaptation ... 66
3.4.5 Flexibility and adaptive capacity ... 71
3.4.6 Relations between flexibility, adaptive capacity and sustainability ... 73
3.4.7 Agrarian change: The role of small-scale farming ... 74
4. Conclusions ... 79
5. References ... 83
PART 2: The publications
Paper 1 Paper 2 Paper 3 Paper 4 Appendices
Appendix 1: Questionnaire form Appendix 2: Co-author declaration
List of tables, figures, and map
Table 1: Paper overview and coherence……….9 Table 2: Comparison of survey variables to district and national census data….32 Table 3: Distribution of population among caste groups and ethnic groups…..…35 Figure 1: Overview of HICAP work packages……….………...…...11 Figure 2: The scale of the principal units of analysis in the four papers…...55 Map 1: The study area………..14
Acronyms and abbreviations
ADS Agricultural Development Strategy APP Agriculture Perspective Plan CBS Central Bureau of Statistics (Nepal) CICERO Center for International Climate Research GDP Gross domestic product
GoN Government of Nepal
HICAP Himalayan Climate Change Adaptation Programme ICIMOD International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
masl meters above sea level
NSD Norwegian Social Science Data Service
PMAMP Prime Minister Agriculture Modernization Project RCP Representative Concentration Pathway
VDC Village Development Committee
1. Introduction
There is growing concern that ongoing and future climate change will impose great challenges to food production systems and to food security in many regions of the world (Battisti & Naylor, 2009; Lal, 2011; Porter et al., 2014; Myers et al., 2017).
Global average crop yields of rice, maize and wheat are projected to decrease by between 3% and 10% per degree of warming above historical levels (Campbell et al., 2016). Greater year-to-year variability in yields is to be expected due to climate change and extreme weather events (Challinor et al., 2014; Porter et al., 2014; Arshad et al., 2017). Higher and more fluctuating food prices are expected, but substantial uncertainty remains in how climate change will influence regional and national food markets (Porter et al., 2014; Myers et al., 2017).
Uncertainty regarding future impacts of climate change and increased variability in global food production challenges the stability of food supply (Myers et al., 2017).
Food security is not only dependent on sufficient national or regional availability of food, but also that people have stable access to food and ability to utilize the food nutritionally (Pinstrup-Andersen, 2009). Food security is of particular concern in developing countries such as Nepal, where 24% of the households are chronically food insecure, and especially in the mountain areas where seasonal food insecurity is most prevalent (CBS, 2013c). Two thirds of all Nepali households have subsistence- based agriculture as their main livelihood and even more are partly engaged in agriculture (CBS, 2013a). However, landholdings are generally small and 60% of all households are not self-sufficient in food, thus they rely on markets for covering their remaining food needs (CBS, 2013a). Climate change adds to the problems of
underlying food insecurity by increasing the instability in food markets, and by making stable access to food through markets more uncertain (CBS, 2013c). It is therefore likely that local food production will continue to make an important contribution to household food security in Nepal in the future.
Climate change will also influence farming households and communities directly. In Himalaya over the recent decades, the average temperature has already increased by 0.3 ℃ per decade, which is faster than the global average (Hock et al., 2019).
Accelerated melting of ice and snow and greater seasonal variations in river discharge have been observed (You et al., 2017), and loss of snow cover has already led to drying of soils and lower yields of potatoes and fodder in Nepal (Hock et al., 2019).
Rainfall variability has increased with more frequent dry spells and greater intensity in wet spells (Singh et al., 2014). Changes in precipitation patterns and in the monsoon are projected for Himalaya this century, but precisely how these changes will affect specific locations remain uncertain (Xu et al., 2009; Immerzeel et al., 2013; Lutz et al., 2014). Considering the very diverse microclimatic conditions in the Himalayan mountains, the future climate to which farming communities in specific localities must adapt is highly uncertain (Aase et al., 2010). Long-term climate change is projected to disrupt the normal weather patterns and thus increase the climatic uncertainty at the local scale.
International labour migration from Nepal has increased dramatically over the last two decades (CBS, 2014b; Gartaula & Niehof, 2018). Seasonal migration for work within Nepal and to India has long been a common livelihood strategy, but recently the out-migration of young men to countries such as Malaysia, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia has surged (Hatlebakk, 2016). During the last national population enumeration, 1.9 million Nepalese resided abroad, among which 88% were men (CBS, 2014b). Remittances from foreign migrants accounted for 32% of GDP in Nepal in 2016 (Fox, 2018). The remittances are spent on daily consumption, land acquisition, loan repayment, education, and health expenses and have, in some cases, contributed to poverty reduction in Nepal (CBS, 2013c; Upreti & Shrestha, 2017).
However, unfavourable inclusion in labour and food markets has also created new forms of poverty (Rigg et al., 2016a; Sunam & McCarthy, 2016). There are considerable economic and personal risks and uncertainties associated with
international labour migration. Experiences of forced labour, unfree recruitment and inability to leave the employer have been reported, as well as lacking and delayed
wage payment (Mak et al., 2017). Harsh living and working conditions in extreme heat have led to premature deaths among young labour migrants (Hatlebakk, 2016;
Sunam & McCarthy, 2016). The rapidly expanding, oil-based economies of Qatar and Saudi-Arabia offer little job security for unskilled Nepali workers. High risk of migration failure combined with high levels of debt leave the international labour migrants in a situation of precarity (Rigg et al., 2016a). While remittances have contributed positively to household food security, the improvement is highly dependent on the continuation of household remittance income (CBS, 2013c). The migrants are typically absent for 2-3 years at a time, thereby withdrawing their labour from agriculture and leaving women and the elderly with a larger workload on the farm (Sunam & McCarthy, 2016; Gartaula & Niehof, 2018). How rural out-migration influences gendered decision-making on the farm and gender relations in rural communities is not yet satisfactorily illuminated in the literature.
There is thus significant uncertainty in three influential large-scale processes: the state of food availability and increasing volatility in international food markets, how climate change will influence local farming communities, and the role of international labour migration’s contribution to household food security and income. The capacity of small-scale farming households to adapt will probably depend on how flexible they are to adjust to uncertain local impacts of a changing climate and to unpredictable fluctuations in markets for food and labour.
1.1 Objective and research questions
The main objective of this dissertation is to study the potentialities for sustaining local agricultural production in the face of uncertain large-scale changes in climate and markets for food and labour. Through a case study from the Nepali Middle Hills, I ask whether, and if so, how this small-scale farming community is sufficiently flexible to adapt to external uncertainties and ensure food security and livelihoods for the households. More specifically, I ask the following research questions:
1. How may the concept of flexibility be operationalised for analyses of adaptive capacity in farming systems facing uncertainty?
2. What are the opportunities for and constraints to adaptive capacity in the studied farming system, and how flexible are the individual farms to adapt to projected impacts of climate change and other large-scale changes?
3. How do local gender roles shape the social spheres in which women and men have decision-making authority, and how are these spheres changing in the light of changing gender norms and in the context of men’s out- migration?
4. Why do farmers reserve of most of their land for subsistence production instead of specializing in profitable high-value cash crops?
1.2 Structure of the dissertation
The dissertation is structured in the following way: The first part is a framing introduction which explains the coherence of the dissertation. Chapter 1 introduces the research topic and objective of the study, presents summaries of the four papers and shows how they contribute to a larger research programme on climate change adaptation in Himalaya. Chapter 2 introduces the study area and gives a thorough discussion of research design and applied methods. Chapter 3 presents the theoretical and philosophy of science foundations of the dissertation, discusses core analytical concepts, and relates the contributions of the papers to existing literature in the field.
Chapter 4 answers the research questions and draws some main conclusions from the dissertation as a whole. The second part of the dissertation consists of the four papers in full, in their published and submitted states. The papers 1 to 4 address the
respective research questions 1 to 4. The questionnaire form and a co-author declaration for paper 1 are attached in Appendices.
1.3 Summaries of the papers
Paper 1 outlines a theoretical approach to study adaptive capacity in farming systems by operationalizing the concept of flexibility. Building on the theoretical literature on flexibility in complex systems, the paper discusses how flexibility theoretically relates to diversification, innovation, resilience, adaptive capacity, and the general sustainability of small-scale food production systems. Understanding flexibility as uncommitted potentiality for change, the term flexibility is operationalized by distinguishing three dimensions: Firstly, flexibility of scope is the presence of buffers of unused capacity in factors of production, thereby allowing the degree of resource utilization to be kept within the upper and lower tolerance thresholds. Secondly, flexibility of type is the ability to change crop composition, selecting from the range of possible crops and productive practices (e.g. non-timber forest products) in the system, here characterized as the local opportunity situation. Lastly, temporal flexibility is the capacity to rapidly adjust the system in the short-term by reallocating productive resources and alternating between crops, and to prepare for an uncertain future in a long-term perspective by keeping several options open. The analysed community farming system possesses flexibility to adapt in several respects, but only within the system’s thresholds of tolerance. The paper identifies the main constraints to flexibility and discusses to what extent it is possible to relieve some of those constraints. In this case, construction of a new collective water pipe will improve local water access temporarily, but since the underlying problem of gradual warming and melting ice and snow is not resolved, the system will still face constraints from seasonal water scarcity under expected future impacts of climate change. The main contribution of this paper to the dissertation is the development of a theoretical approach for studying and analysing farming flexibility as an expression of adaptive capacity under uncertain conditions of production.
Paper 2 gives an in-depth empirical analysis of the farming system in the study area, Maina Pokhari in Dolakha, and applies the flexibility theory at the scale of single household farm systems. The paper identifies the current room to manoeuvre and the main constraints to flexibility of scope and maps the current opportunity situation. By
applying downscaled climate projections that are adjusted to the study area, an estimation is made of how the local opportunity situation and the conditions for cultivation are likely to be affected, should the projected changes occur.
Like many rural communities in Nepal, Maina Pokhari experiences extensive labour migration to Kathmandu and abroad, especially by young men. However, migrants have also started to return and invest their labour in the family farm. Local innovation in cultivation of new vegetables, forest products, fruits, and spices with high market values has increased the local range of available cultivars. By using the flexibility of scope, type and temporality in their farm systems, farmers combine subsistence and market production in ways that enhance household food security. For the migrating youth, a return to farming is regarded as a safety net and backup plan, but the
opportunity to generate some income from farming makes returning a more attractive option and reduces the households’ dependency on remittances. The paper concludes that diversification, not specialization, preserves the flexibility to rapidly adjust resource utilization, crop compositions and productive practices. Furthermore, a balanced market integration with a flexible combination of subsistence production and high-value crops makes an important contribution to adaptive capacity in the face of uncertain and variable climatic and market conditions.
Social differentiation between households, and between women and men, are not well captured analytically by the farming systems approach and the flexibility theory.
Paper 3 therefore focuses on gender relations and social differentiation in caste and ethnicity, wealth, age, and marital status. The paper identifies two competing sets of cultural gender norms in Nepal and discusses how people, through their social practices, relate to these abstract sets of gender norms. Modern development ideas of women’s empowerment and gender equality, promoted by international development organizations and the Nepali Government, currently challenge traditional gender norms, which favour men in land ownership and inheritance, leave women with limited economic independence, and confine women to household chores with little participation in community decision-making processes and market activities.
By mapping the gendered division of labour and intra-household decision-making in the context of men’s out-migration, I find that women have a say in matters related to the household and farm management, but not in spheres lying outside the household and the farm. The ability to negotiate between competing sets of gender norms and alter what is considered socially acceptable practice in the community is socially differentiated. I conclude that those who are best positioned to challenge traditional gender norms are individuals who stand strong in hierarchies of wealth, caste, age, and marital status. Interactions between modern development norms and traditional gender norms inspire local cultural change which has implications for women’s participation in political, financial and market spheres.
The first two papers give much attention to emerging opportunities and introduction of new high-value crops. However, paper 2 shows that only a minority of the households in Maina Pokhari choose to deliberately cultivate crops for the market, and that those who do, dedicate only a fifth of their land to cash crops. Paper 4 therefore explores the production strategies of farming households, asking why people prioritize the reservation of most of their land for subsistence production and avoid specialization in high-value crops, even after having experienced the income- bringing potentials of cash cropping. Drawing on classical theories of peasant behaviour and motivation, I identify several reasons and priorities that guide the production strategies. I find that farming households balance several different objectives when choosing their crop compositions, which can be distinguished as two production logics: Firstly, a market logic where the exchange value of the crops matters and where spices, vegetables, and fruits are preferred because they give higher economic returns than staple crops. Secondly, a subsistence logic where crops are selected based on their use value as the purpose of cultivation, according to this logic, is to ensure a stable fulfilment of household and community needs.
The farming households follow the subsistence logic for most of their plots for three main reasons: Firstly, they aim to ensure a stable supply of food through choosing a diversity of reliable crops with low yield variability, to reduce the risk of food insecurity for the household and in the community. Secondly, subsistence production
is embedded in and helps to reinforce social networks of loyalty and reciprocity.
Social obligations for reciprocal sharing of food, and systems for casual labour in exchange for food, reduce the risk of anyone experiencing periods of severe food scarcity. Lastly, traditional subsistence production is experienced as a meaningful activity that is well adapted to the local environment, is based on embodied knowledge, and is embedded in culture and traditions. Some independence from markets gives autonomy, and the family farm represents a safe base to which young migrants can return. While subsistence crops are only sold in case of a surplus, investments are made, and higher risk is taken on dedicated cash crops. Cultivation for profit is evaluated against migration and other livelihoods, not against subsistence production. The households are fully capable of combining the subsistence logic on most of their land with some cash cropping, but they find it too risky and unwise to convert completely to commercial production.
The current agricultural development strategy of Nepal regards subsistence
production as an impediment to economic growth and advocates a transformation of Nepali agriculture into large-scale, mechanized, specialized, and commercial production units. The implementation of this strategy may improve the agricultural sector’s economic performance and reduce Nepal’s dependency on food imports, but it would not ensure a stable access to food for rural farming households. The farmers’
strategy to balance subsistence and market production and maintain social security networks in the community enhances their food security and adaptive capacity.
The first and second papers apply a farming systems approach to analyse farming flexibility: Paper 1 at the scale of a community farming system, and paper 2 at the scale of household farm systems. The third and fourth papers focus on farm management and decision-making: paper 3 between husband and wife at the intra- household scale, and paper 4 at the scale of the household as one economic unit.
Table 1 presents an overview of the papers and shows how they are related.
Table 1: Paper overview and coherence
Papers Topic Unit of
analysis Theoretical
contributions Empirical findings 1. Flexibility of
scope, type, and temporality in Mustang, Nepal.
Opportunities for adaptation in a farming system facing climatic and market uncertainty
Farming flexibility as adaptive capacity under climatic and market uncertainty
Community farming system
Flexibility consists of buffers of unused capacity, a variety of possible crops/products and ability to rapidly adjust production
The system has significant flexibility to adapt, but is constrained by little meltwater in spring which could worsen with climate change 2. Minor crops and
major
opportunities in Dolakha, Nepal
Farming flexibility as adaptive capacity under climatic and market uncertainty
Household farm systems
How the local opportunity situation may change under locally adjusted climate projections
High-value crops give new income opportunities and improved adaptive capacity if traditional crop diversity is kept 3. Competing
gender norms and social practice in Himalayan farm management
Farm management and decision making
Individual men and women
Two competing sets of cultural gender norms create new opportunities for change in women’s and men’s social practices
Women take active part in decisions on the farm. Social differentiation influences who can alter local gender norms and establish new practices 4. National
specialization policy versus farmers’
priorities:
Balancing subsistence farming and cash cropping in Nepal
Farm management and decision making
Households Subsistence logic and market logic are distinct, but can be
successfully combined
Farmers
prioritise reliable subsistence crops and see cash crops only as a high-risk supplement
1.4 Scientific environment and funding
This PhD project is part of and funded by a larger research programme named Himalayan Climate Change Adaptation Programme, HICAP (2012–2017), which was jointly implemented by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain
Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu, CICERO Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, and GRID in Arendal, in collaboration with 28 regional partner institutions in nine countries. HICAP was funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).
HICAP was carried out in five river basins in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region: The Upper Indus in Pakistan, the Koshi sub-basin in Nepal, the Eastern Brahmaputra in India, the Upper Brahmaputra in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and the Upper Salween-Mekong in China. The work was organized in seven interrelated work packages (Figure 1) which covered regional and downscaled climate scenarios, water availability and demand scenarios, ecosystem services, food security, vulnerability and adaptation, women and gender in adaptation, and communication and outreach.
This study is related to three of the work packages: Vulnerability and adaptation, women and gender in adaptation, and food security. Papers 1 and 2 relate to
adaptation and vulnerability by analysing the flexibility of farming and farm systems, including the constraints to flexibility, and discussing how the opportunity situation of farming households is likely to change under future climatic conditions. Paper 2 includes analyses based on downscaled climate scenarios from the first HICAP work package. Paper 3 concerns gender relations by discussing how people negotiate what are considered socially accepted practices by relating to two competing sets of gender norms. Lastly, paper 4 addresses food security issues through exploring farmers’
motivations for retaining subsistence production and finds that ensuring household and community food security was an important factor.
Figure 1: Overview of HICAP work packages (ICIMOD 2013).
Throughout the project period I have been affiliated to the Department of Geography and the PhD programme at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of
Bergen. I have been part of the research school at the Center for Development and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo, and have completed PhD courses at the University of Bergen, University of Stavanger, University of Oslo and the Western Norway Research Institute. The papers have been presented at five international and Nordic conferences in Nepal, USA, and Norway and communicated through various popular science presentations, lectures, radio interviews, op eds (including in Nepali Times) and magazine articles. Three of the papers are published in international peer- reviewed journals and publishers, among which two papers are published at Level 2.
The fourth paper is under review for a Level 2 journal.
Doing a PhD as part of a larger research programme implies that my choices regarding thematic focus have, to some extent, been conditioned by the strategic priorities of the HICAP programme, to which the papers have been reported as outputs. Topics such as national adaptation policy and institutional capacity for adaptation, changing ecosystem services, and changing regional water availability and demand have been addressed in other work packages of the programme. A large hydropower project, Tamakoshi III, involves the construction of a dam nearby the study area, but this is not a topic in the dissertation as the downstream areas will face the greatest consequences. Two great earthquakes and numerous smaller quakes caused extensive and severe damage to Nepal in the spring of 2015, including the study area, but disaster risk and natural hazards are not within the scope of this project. Historical accounts of the Maoist insurgencies which lasted from 1996 to 2006 are also excluded from the dissertation.
2. Research design and methodology
2.1 Selection of study area
The study area was selected based on the following criteria: 1. It must lie in a sub- basin of the Koshi river system of Nepal due to coordinated strategic choices of HICAP focus areas; 2. It should comprise a Middle Hill agro-forestry farming system in order to ensure comparability to five other case study areas for a joint publication by co-authors and I (Aase et al., 2017)4; 3. Small-scale farming should be the dominant economic activity and livelihood in the area, preferably including both traditional and innovative farming practices; 4. The altitude span of the hillsides should cover the current altitude limit for rice cultivation which is likely to be affected by current and future climate change; 5. The caste and ethnicity composition should be mixed and levels of wealth and land holdings vary; and 6. Longer periods of ethnographic fieldwork must be feasible, meaning that a local hotel or lodge had to be available and walking distance to the studied settlements was preferred.
A scoping trip for locating a suitable study area was conducted in October 2012. My supervisor and I visited and evaluated four potential sites. The area that best met all the above-mentioned criteria was Kavre and Chhetrapa Rural Municipalities in Dolakha5, a mountain district in Province 3 of Nepal (see Map 1). The two
municipalities lie in the Middle Hill zone and are separated by a forest-covered ridge peaking at 2419 meters above sea level (masl). The Tamakoshi river, a tributary to the greater Koshi river, runs by below at approximately 880 masl. Individual farms and small settlements are scattered along the slope of the hillside between
approximately 1400 and 2100 masl, on both sides of the ridge.
4 Aase, T. H., Holmelin, N. B., van Oort, B., Agrawal, Nischalke, S., Wang, W., Ahmed, S., Chapagain, P. S., and Bisht, S. (2017). Current adaptations and future prospects of Himalayan farming. In: Climate Change and the Future of Himalayan Farming. T. H. Aase (ed.). India: Oxford University Press.
5 Dolakha belonged to the Janakpur Zone of Central Nepal until 2017 when a new administrative structure was implemented in Nepal. Municipalities were formerly called Village Development Committees, VDCs.
Map 1: The study area
The village Maina Pokhari (1970 masl) is the centre of the study area. It is a transport hub, marketplace and meeting point for people living in adjacent settlements. The village lies along a road which links the road head Jiri to the district headquarters Charikot and leads further on to Kathmandu, seven hours drive from Maina Pokhari. I define the study area as a functional region, meaning that it comprises all households using the village Maina Pokhari as their primary market and transport nexus. The concept ‘functional region’ is further elaborated in section 3.3.3. Most households in Kavre and Chhetrapa municipalities and a small Sherpa settlement, Yarza, in Bhimeshwor (former Mirge) municipality are included. Households located more than a 2.5 hours’ walk away from Maina Pokhari prefer to visit other, smaller marketplaces. The boundaries of the study area are thus defined in terms of relative space, the walking distance to the village. A thorough general description and a farming system analysis of the study area is included in paper 2 and is not repeated here.
2.2 Mixed methods research design
The publications are based on primary data obtained and produced during fieldwork.
After the initial scoping trip in 2012, I conducted fieldwork during two periods in Maina Pokhari in 2013, spring and autumn. Each fieldwork lasted approximately two months. In addition, I had two visits to Nepal in 2014, and in the autumn 2015, I spent another two weeks in Nepal and went back to Maina Pokhari for a short follow- up fieldwork. The papers 2, 3 and 4 constitute the empirical core of the project while paper 1 is included mainly due to its theoretical contribution on the concept farming flexibility. Paper 1 draws on empirical data from my earlier work in Lower Mustang, Nepal. Reflections over fieldwork and applied methods for paper 1 are described and discussed briefly in the paper and in detail in Holmelin (2010).
I developed a mixed methods research design (Cresswell et al., 2003; Johnson &
Onwuegbuzie, 2004) that involves a combination of selected qualitative and
quantitative methods for data production. Qualitative and quantitative oriented research methods are not mutually exclusive, but rather focus on different aspects of social phenomena (Agar, 1986; Aase & Fossåskaret, 2014; Wadel, 2014). While quantitative methods are focused on investigating the extent and magnitude of the research topic and are suitable for answering questions of the dispersion, prevalence and quantitative trends of change, qualitative methods instead focus on the content of the phenomenon resulting in knowledge of for instance how and why a certain event or process occurred, or which factors contribute to social change (Aase &
Fossåskaret, 2014). Qualitative methods are suitable for obtaining insight and a deeper understanding of social phenomena and are particularly useful for studying relations, processes and social interactions (Aase & Fossåskaret, 2014; Wadel, 2014).
Qualitative work is inherently interpretative, focusing on meanings rather than frequencies (Agar, 1986). Qualitative and quantitative oriented methods build on different principles for ensuring reliability and must not be mixed into hybrids, but a research design that rigorously draws on both qualitative and quantitative methods can produce results that complement each other which in sum gives a more
comprehensive picture of the research topic. Different kinds of methods are necessary in order to understand the complexity of social phenomena (Cresswell et al., 2003).
Both quantitative and qualitative methods vary with respect to researcher
involvement and number of units included in the sample (Aase & Fossåskaret, 2014).
Some quantitatively oriented methods involve a large number of units and a low level of researcher engagement, for instance a structured survey with a predefined set of possible answers. At the other extreme are qualitative methods such as participant observation where the researcher is intensively involved, establishing social relations with a smaller number of informants. However, many research methods can be placed along a continuum between these two poles (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Aase &
Fossåskaret, 2014). Semi-structured interviews and field conversations are examples of methods lying along the continuum between the two extremes, although tending towards the qualitative end. The purpose of mixed methods research is to move beyond the purist position that qualitative and quantitative methods are incompatible,
instead recognizing that both of them are useful and important in producing different kinds of knowledge (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). The relative priority of qualitative and quantitative methods will vary with the objective of the study
(Cresswell et al., 2003). As my research questions focus on the content more than the extent of the topics in question, I let the qualitatively oriented methods take priority accordingly.
In the following sections, I describe the applied methods ranging from the most intensive method, participant observation, to the most extensive, a household survey.
Since all data production had to be completed within the time I had in the field, I did not conduct the quantitative and qualitative methods in sequence, but rather chose a simultaneous design (Cresswell et al., 2003), also called a mixed-model design (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004), of applying the different methods within the same stage of the research process, in my case, the fieldwork.
2.2.1 Ethnography
Ethnographic research is done in a variety of ways and there is no single definition of ethnography that is universally adopted (Stewart, 1998), but one important objective is to study social life as it unfolds in the practices of everyday life (Donge, 2006). The researcher aims to observe events, practices and social processes in their natural context and then discuss these observations with the informants, seeking to reveal people’s own interpretations, their concepts and cultural categories (Aase &
Fossåskaret, 2014).
Stewart (1998) lists four core characteristics of ethnographic research: The first is participant observation. In contrast to research methods that establish artificial situations, such as controlled experiments, the ethnographic ideal is to be accepted as a participant in social life (Donge, 2006). The goal is to obtain sufficient access to take part in and observe social processes as they occur “backstage” (Aase &
Fossåskaret, 2014), through taking an active, participative role in everyday life (Stewart, 1998). Reflections on how I participated in social life through acquiring
local and semi-local statuses and what kinds of access I obtained are discussed in detail later in this chapter.
The second characteristic is holism, to synthesize disparate observations into an integrated whole. In earlier anthropological traditions, attempts at holistic analyses of a society and its culture have been made (Howell & Melhuus, 2001). However, the journal article format does not allow for the level and amount of detail needed to fulfil the ambition of holism. In practice, comprehensiveness is always limited and most ethnographic analyses today are not and cannot be all-embracing, but instead choose a narrower focus (Stewart, 1998). Within Geography, there is general acceptance for a focussed analysis in accordance with the defined objective of the study.
The third characteristic is context sensitivity, meaning that the researcher explains one set of observations in terms of their connections with others. In my papers this is achieved through analysing quotes from informants in the light of characteristics of the household (family situation, property, wealth level, altitude of the farm, distance to the market, etc.) and with reference to the broader context of agricultural
opportunities, what I in papers 1 and 2 call ‘the opportunity situation’, climatic conditions and cultural gender norms. Since I interviewed the same households quantitatively by means of the household survey and qualitatively through in-depth interviews, the different types of household data are coupled.
Stewart’s last characteristic of ethnography is sociocultural description.
Ethnographers agree that the subjective views of people should be recorded and interpreted (Stewart, 1998). Observations become data when they are conceptualized, and in the process of categorization and interpretation, different meanings can be revealed (Aase & Fossåskaret, 2014). To identify diverging interpretations of a phenomenon can contribute to building understanding and insight into social processes, human—environment relations, and cultural norms. I show the latter in Paper 3 where I present people’s own concepts, categories, and interpretations of how decision-making is gendered and use this as a basis and supplement to my analysis
based on scientific concepts. In paper 2, the informant’s own concept of ‘the five J’s’
is remarkably consistent with the scientific concept of a farming system: The five J’s refer to the Nepali words for water (jal), forest (jangal), livestock (janawar), labour (janashakti) and land (jamin) and the farmer must manage these five resources well in order to be successful. A large part of the empirical material included in paper 4 consists of people’s own interpretations and views of the importance of subsistence production, its multiple functions, and its low-risk qualities, expressed as direct quotes. In paper 1, people’s own interpretations of their economic prospects and their preferred strategies for preparing for the future are included.
2.2.2 Participant observation: Positionality and status
Feminist social scientists have since the late 1980s questioned claims to objective and value-free research, arguing that all knowledge is produced in specific circumstances which shape it in some way (Rose, 1997) and that power relations between researcher and informant influence how knowledge is represented (Mullings, 1999). The terms positionality and situated knowledges redirect the focus from the researched to the researcher as an embodied person with a background, history and identity, not as an objective and neutral observer (Haraway, 1988; Rose, 1997; Mullings, 1999). Instead of denying or ignoring that the researcher’s personal identifiers influence the research process, feminist social scientists instead called for reflexivity, to critically reflect on one’s own positionality and how it shapes interpretations of data and representations of ‘the other’ (Rose, 1997; Nagar & Geiger, 2007). This feminist critique is relevant for ethnographic fieldwork in calling for critical reflections of how the gender, age, nationality, class and other social markers of the researcher influence how he or she is perceived by the informants, how social interaction in the field occurs and how the researcher views and interprets the data (Mullings, 1999). However, while critically reflecting over one’s own positionality, one must cautiously avoid going to the other extreme of essentialising social categories (Nagar & Geiger, 2007).
While positionality refers to personal identifiers such as gender, age and class, the concepts status and role point to the related topic of a person’s position in a social system. A status is a social position with a connected set of rights and duties (Linton, 1936; Aase & Fossåskaret, 2007; Wadel & Wadel, 2007). Social relations are
established between symmetrical statuses, for instance two friends, or complementary statuses such as student and teacher, which enable each party to have specific role expectations of the other. By performing the role according to the rights and duties of a particular status, for instance ‘teacher’, the status is activated and confirmed. Any social person occupies a number of statuses simultaneously (Wadel & Wadel, 2007).
An important task for the researcher doing participant observation is to critically reflect over which statuses she is ascribed, how she can perform and shape the role or perhaps even achieve some new statuses, and what kind of access that gives her (Aase & Fossåskaret, 2007). My positionality as a white, European woman of 29 years influenced which statuses I was ascribed and could take on. Being a woman opens some doors and closes others, just as being Western and not Nepali does.
During fieldwork I was accompanied by a Nepali research assistant. I ensured that the research assistant was a woman and not older than me to avoid problems of being perceived as subordinate to my research assistant due to cultural perceptions of social rank related to gender and age. Having a Nepali friend who I could walk with and talk to was also beneficial for obtaining access. People we met on the paths would often stop and ask my assistant who I was and where we were going. When I on occasion walked alone people would be puzzled, asking where my friend was. I also needed translation for the interviews as I only knew a little Nepali, and most people knew no or very little English. My Nepali improved during the time in the field, but I still required translation to get the answers and quotes correctly recorded.
In the following I will elaborate on how my statuses in the local status inventory developed and progressed during fieldwork, and to what extent I was unable to achieve certain statuses due to my specific positionality in terms of age, gender and nationality.
The foreigner. The very first day of the first fieldwork there was a wedding in the village. Lots of people were gathering, the bride was dressed in red and they were all dancing, waiting for a bus load of the groom and his friends to come and take the bride with them. The ritual is a symbolic re-enactment of capture marriage, a tradition which is now abandoned (Bista, 1991). The wedding lasted all day, and my assistant and I were invited to join in. The event opened for many informal conversations where I could introduce myself. I received some invitations from people who wanted to show me around, younger people who knew some English, which I followed up the next day. I let my new acquaintances take me to various parts of the field area, introducing me to their friends and relatives. They were proud to show that they knew a Western person, a foreigner, and glad to demonstrate their English skills. Accepting invitations and letting myself be introduced was a very good way to obtain initial access to the farming areas surrounding Maina Pokhari village. When first I was introduced to a new area and some of the people living there, I experienced that I had the necessary access to come back another day, walk onto a farm and ask for an interview. People would generally accept and invite me into their courtyards.
The PhD student. Knowing that my initial household interviews were very important for future access, and that people would probably discuss them afterwards, which they did, I was cautious to ask only about farming practices and to avoid any questions that could appear intrusive or inappropriate. I introduced myself as a PhD student doing my dissertation on the broad term “farming,” as I rapidly discovered that students were generally accepted, few people would relate to “research” or to
“climate change” and that any attempt to explain my research agenda more in depth was rather futile. “Student” was a known status in the local status inventory (Linton, 1936; Aase & Fossåskaret, 2007) with a connected set of rights and obligations.
Nepali students doing their thesis work would occasionally come to the village, which meant that people knew roughly what to expect. They did not know what to expect from a “researcher”, however. It was not a well-known local status and I found that introducing myself as a researcher could easily alienate people. Taking on the status of a PhD student and performing my role accordingly also ensured that I could avoid any impressions of being an NGO worker coming with projects, money, or
contacts for new business opportunities. Being honest about my work and intentions was important for gaining trust.
A benefit of conducting a structured quantitative household survey was that it corresponded to my informants’ expectations to what “students” would do. The survey was thus useful not only for data collection purposes, but also for confirming my status as a PhD student doing research. People’s previous experience with researchers had largely been the conducting of household surveys and governmental population censuses. By opening a household interview with the survey, I established the situation as a research interview, which next opened for open-ended questions and informal conversations about any subject of interest.
The “Swiss”. The household survey also clearly distinguished me from a tourist or trekker. Maina Pokhari is rarely visited by tourists and trekkers, as they either drive directly to the road head Jiri or fly to Lukla in Solukhumbu district for trekking in the popular Mount Everest area. However, Swiss development agents have been working in the area for more than thirty years and have through continued and long-term efforts managed to build roads, introduce new crops, invest in irrigation, and improve health services. A few Swiss researchers have also been working in the area and have apparently left a good impression. When I explained what I was doing there, people often referred to “the Swiss”. They also found that I looked much like them. To me the association to the Swiss was favourable, I was met with the attitude that I, like the Swiss people, contribute to long-term benefits and progress (bikas).
The Western woman. Since one of my research topics was gender relations, it was important for the study that I could interact with women without the company of a man. During the course of fieldwork, we gradually obtained access to interview women in their kitchens, courtyards, and fields and to engage in semi-structured group discussions with women. One-on-one interviews and group discussions were also conducted with men and with groups of men and women. Semi-structured interviews that from the outset concerned agriculture often turned into conversations about relations between men and women, marriage practices, and social expectations
connected to the role as a housewife. The great interest that young women in particular took in marriage norms and practices in what they call ‘outside’, here meaning the West, laid the ground for comparisons and distinctions between local
‘inside’ norms and practices and those of ‘outside’.
In accordance with an interactionist view on interviewing (Aase & Fossåskaret, 2007), the interviewer takes an active part in creating dialogue during the interview.
Meaning is constructed through a conversation between two or more active parties and the researcher must actively engage in the conversation. The methodological challenge is not to attempt to be a passive or objective listener, but rather to reflect thoroughly on the ways in which the researcher influences the situation and how the rights and duties connected to the researcher’s status (Linton, 1936) in the situation influence the type of information that is obtained. Interview data is thus not revealed, but rather produced during the interaction between researcher and informants (Aase
& Fossåskaret, 2007).
With that in mind, I engaged in the discussions of gender norms and marriage practices by explaining my own civil status, talking about Norwegian culture and gender relations, and showing some photos. Sharing something about myself as well contributed to balancing the interview situation as I was not the only one asking all the questions, draining them for information, and it helped establish an image of myself as a whole social person, with my own background, family, and social relations. I found that this helped building trust and confidence, that both parties had something to learn from each other, and that once people had heard how we “in the West” found a boyfriend and entered marriage, the relevance of talking about how this worked locally and in Nepal increased. Discussions of cultural differences revealed patterns, norms and practices that are often taken for granted when not contrasted by something very different.
Since gender relations was one of my research topics, I made sure to include both men and women as informants, striving for a rough balance. While my status as a woman gave me access to conversations and social interaction with other women, my
status as a Westerner gave me access to talk to men, to a certain extent. The dynamics of the conversations differed accordingly. Men often perceived the interview situation as more formal than women did. Initially, men tended to focus more on quantitative information about crops and farming practices, which were more in line with their perception of what researchers did and surveys were for. They were less inclined to present their own views and experiences during the first meeting. After repeated visits and several informal field conversations, some men changed their perception of what I did and increasingly elaborated on their own views, opinions and perceptions regarding farming and livelihood priorities, their families, local affairs and trends of change in the community.
However, I did not have access to arenas for local politics and the various committees (samitis) making collective decisions, which were dominated by men. Neither did I have access to ask men older than me about their personal experiences of marriage, health issues, or their positions in local hierarchies of power. These were topics I could occasionally discuss with women, who would also introduce me to the symbolism of impurity related to menstruation and childbirth and the established practices for separation during women’s periods and for restoring symbolic purity afterwards (chhaupadi). This level of intimacy in the conversations was only possible to achieve with women. Certain young men, who would address me as ‘didi’, ‘older sister’ would share their aspirations for the future, their worries about the perceived pressure to “be successful” in terms of income generation, and some would tell me about great challenges and even traumatic experiences of abuse and imprisonment during international labour migration.
During my fieldwork in Jharkot, Mustang, which laid the empirical basis for paper 1, I was invited by a friend to be present and observe the election of a new village leader and his assistants. Both women and men were present at the roof-top meeting, but only men spoke, and only men could be elected. In Jharkot, I had the status as a volunteer teacher in the local Buddhist monastery (gompa), where I gave classes in English and mathematics every afternoon. The children lived in the monastery and spent much time in the inner courtyard and in the kitchen, places where I had access
due to my status as a teacher. My relation to the children was also a way into participating in other social arenas and events in the village such as festivals, celebrations, ceremonies, and funerals. Being a teacher gave me a local status that justified why I spent six weeks in this small village, unlike all the trekkers who would spend a maximum of two nights there. It also improved my access to social arenas and to interview people, beyond what I could have achieved from merely being a student and a paying guest at the lodge. Although I did not have a local status in Dolakha, my access improved over the course of the fieldwork as I achieved other, semi-local statuses.
Guest and “bonus daughter”. I rented rooms in a lodge in Maina Pokhari, and the hosts rapidly considered me as their guest and “their” foreigner. People would often ask where I was staying and when I referred to my hosts, they would nod
approvingly. Being associated with my hosts proved to be a great social benefit. They were a respected family in the community and their ground floor restaurant was a hub for small trade, informal meetings, and other forms of daily social contact in the village. Much social interaction happened in the mornings and after a while I found that people sometimes came looking for me and were already waiting for me when I came down in the morning. Many valuable observations, long field conversations and invitations to visit their farms and interview them occurred in the mornings in the restaurant. After repeated invitations and visits to certain households and
participation in festival celebrations, forms of acquaintances and friendships were established through which I was informed about events, rituals, norms and gossip stories that I otherwise would have been completely unaware of.
My host mother would often say how much I reminded her of her fourth daughter.
She had both adult, married daughters and adolescent daughters staying at home. My interpreter and I were more and more treated like guests of the family, their
temporary “bonus daughters” and “bonus sisters”, who they included in festival celebrations and ceremonies. We spent much time with them in the mornings and evenings, where they taught me Nepali, let me help with small household chores and after a while they started to test their English skills as well. When the main festival
period, Dasain – Tihar was coming up, we took part in the preparations and in ceremonies. We all dressed up in saris, we celebrated bhai tikka, and I was invited in to do puja (a ceremony) in the sacred ancestor room during Laxmi puja, which I interpreted as a sign that I was – for some time – considered to a degree an insider.
Fieldwork also has its challenging sides. Sometimes I would ask myself who was really observing whom. Male drivers who stayed at the hotel would often stare at me for hours in the evenings and discuss my presence in an obvious manner. Some would stand less than 20 centimetres away from me, staring, throughout a whole interview with an informant. They obviously found me out of place. It made me feel much like an animal in a zoo, and I found that I was an object of observation just as much as I was the observer.
In the farming areas surrounding Maina Pokhari, however, I was greeted on the path and welcomed into the farms. When I asked for an interview, I could hear that they
“had been waiting for you to come visit us too” while rolling out a straw mat for us to sit on. The great difference in how I was approached by different groups of people invoked reflections on power relations between the researcher and the researched.
The feminist geography literature has often highlighted the dimensions of power inherent in all knowledge production and how white, Western academic researchers Festival celebrations during Dasain – Tihar
are in a privileged position to the people they study when the research is done in a cross-cultural context (Rose, 1997). I fully acknowledge the power and responsibility that is inherently tied to producing academic knowledge in the shape of published, peer-reviewed articles, where my choices of perspective and use of quotes and other empirical data will influence whose voices are heard. However, I am less convinced of my having a privileged position in relation to my informants during the fieldwork as such. As the above discussion shows, my position(s) in the local status inventory was far from the top of the local status hierarchies. My social background and higher education did not count in this context, and I had no access to the inner circles of powerful men in the local community. In some situations, I became partly an insider while in other situations I was still considered a stranger. My privilege and power as a researcher rather lie in deciding which questions I ask, how I interpret the answers and in what form I choose to present the results (McLafferty, 1995). Ethical considerations and responsible handling of data are discussed in section 2.3.
2.2.3 Observation
A priority during fieldwork was to obtain relevant data for conducting a
comprehensive farming system analysis (Turner & Brush, 1987), the result of which is presented in paper 2. While interviews are suitable for studying human and social aspects, a farming system is a type of social-ecological system which also demands analytical inclusion of natural components. Observations of fields and crops, forests, livestock, water resources, altitude and climatic conditions were important for mapping the opportunity situation in the field area (see paper 2), the constraints to cultivation from altitude, steepness of the slope or lack of water, and unrealized potentials for cultivation. To directly observe the landscape laid the basis for discussing these observations with the farmers themselves, such as why they prioritized certain crops and chose not to grow other crops even though they had suitable land for them. Such observations of the farm and its natural environment enabled numerous discussions over resource utilization, production strategies, water rights and market opportunities and constraints that would not have been attainable
based on interviews alone. The research question for paper 4 arose from observations of the pervasive priority of maize and millet for subsistence over other crops with a higher market value.
Using a GPS, I noted the altitude of the main fields for each interviewed household. I also walked transects down the slopes in Kavre and in Chhetrapa and marked the highest altitude where rice was cultivated. This marked the altitude limit for rice cultivation under the current local climate. Irrigated land (khet) existed also above this limit, but the farmers did not cultivate rice there. The farmers referred to it as lekh, the higher-altitude summer pastures. I also asked people to draw local maps for distribution of irrigation water and for community forest rights, and to draw their agricultural calendar. Observing newly introduced crops, fruit trees, herbs and so on gave me an opportunity to ask about these plants in detail. Random observations resulted in my discovery of several local innovations.
2.2.4 Semi-structured interviews and group interviews
A large part of the qualitative data was obtained through semi-structured interviews in the surveyed households. The interviews covered a range of issues regarding farming, cropping patterns and weather-related challenges, but also people’s priorities and strategies for the future, experiences of social norms and expectations, and perceptions of opportunities and constraints in the community. The initial quantitative household survey then developed into a semi-structured interview partly led by the informants themselves. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was thus applied even within one interview situation.
Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with key informants and
representatives for local NGOs, local and district governmental officers, lending and saving cooperative members, interest group committees (samitis), the district research centre, and others. Secondary data included local statistical and census reports on population and agriculture and were obtained from District and Municipal offices and translated from Nepali.
